A satisfying tale that aptly balances teen drama with a bit of magic.
In this YA fantasy, a teenager suspects that the woman next door and her family are witches.
Fifteen-year-old Matt Mitchell and his twin sister, Tina, are still grieving from the loss of their mother. But their depressed father, Sam, wants no reminders of his wife, so he moves the family from Oregon to Hawthorne, Indiana. Matt is a target for high school bullies Clayton Cartwright, Colin O’Connell, and Dylan Jones and hears rumors that his next-door neighbor, Old Lady Hawthorne, is a witch who, years ago, murdered her husband and his lover. But with the Mitchells’ finances tight, Matt offers to tend to his neighbor’s yard. The lady, Vivianne, proves accommodating and quite friendly, notwithstanding some eccentricities. Her niece, Gwendolyn, and her three kids soon leave Maine and move into Vivianne’s home, and Matt quickly befriends the boy his age, Gerallt. But it turns out there may be validity to the witch rumor. The Hawthornes are druids, capable of magic, and Gerallt believes the amulet he wears is a gift from the Celtic goddess Modron. Casting spells against bullies certainly has benefits, but the Hawthornes won’t like Gerallt revealing family secrets to Matt, whom they consider an “outsider.” Firesmith’s (Hell Holes, 2016, etc.) novel, an absorbing tale of two diverse friends, smartly downplays the fantastical elements. Gerallt, for example, views the magic as simply part of his religion and rightly takes offense when Matt suggests the amulet is “some kind of advanced alien tech.” While the book initially centers on Matt and Gerallt versus the bullies, it oddly splits into subplots resembling short stories (complete with their own resolutions): a stolen amulet, the reputed Hawthorne treasure, and a Tina-centric story. The author’s prose is lucid and descriptive, though its most notable quality is the Hawthornes’ pronounced New England lilt (“Gerallt knows bettah than tah call attention tah himself”). The story ends with several addenda, including lists of characters and Maine idioms, and the promise of further adventures with Matt and Gerallt
A satisfying tale that aptly balances teen drama with a bit of magic.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72628-315-1
Page Count: 413
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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